Too Much
by Iamareadingaddict
Summary: Just a One-Shot that I came up with. The weight of responsibility and the horrors of the past wars are starting to catch up with Percy, and he is cracking under the pressure. He just can't stand it anymore, and is sorry for the pain that he will be causing, but he just can't do it anymore. It's just too much.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: IMPORTANT TO READ BEFORE YOU CONTINUE!**

 **This story is really angsty and overall just pretty fucking depressing. It was just a one-shot idea I came up with. This is just a warning, this story definitely contains triggers. So please, read at your own risk.**

 **P.S. Depending on the popularity of this story I might add another chapter where somebody finds him and is able to save him and/or he dies and everybody has to deal with the grief. I don't know… It all kind of depends on you guys, so please enjoy and review with what you think.**

The sun shone down on Camp Half-blood, basking everyone and everything in a happy golden light.

It was just a year after the Giant War, and all the campers were starting to get over the sadness of their losses. New campers escorted by satyrs flooded into the camp everyday, and the population had soon risen back up to what it had been before.

The smell of strawberries hung in the air, and the sound of swords clashing came from the sword practice arena. Accompanied, as it always was, by the sound of laughter.

The ocean, however, did not seem to share in the cheerful mood.

It was a dark green, turned slightly brown from all the sand that was being stirred up because of the wicked current.

A terrible riptide pulled and tore at the shore, daring anybody to try and swim in it.

Nobody seemed to notice this, though, too caught up as they were in their own happy moods. After all, no large waves crashed on the beach, no storm was brewing off shore. There was nothing to notice about the ocean at all that day unless you knew how to look.

They didn't know the ways of the ocean, though. They didn't know that it was when it was like this that it was the most dangerous.

A boy sat by himself in a dark cabin, the door closed and the blinds drawn. His thoughts swirled and crashed much like the currents of the ocean under the surface, and one could only wonder if the two were somehow related.

His raven black hair hung in his face as he sat on the edge of his bed. His breathing was slightly labored and his eyes closed.

He was lean, but muscles could still be seen just beneath the surface. Not to big, but not too small that you doubted that he could rip you apart if he truly wanted to.

His skin was paler than it usually was. Barely noticeable, and yet changing his complexion entirely.

Overall, Percy Jackson looked very much the same. Only those paying close enough attention could notice the difference, but he didn't have anybody like that.

He was Percy Jackson. Both the Hero and the Saviour of Olympus. He wasn't supposed to need help. People weren't supposed to have to check up on him as they did the others.

His eyes opened. The irises were, as always, a beautiful sea green. But now they were crowded with so much sadness and pain that he hardly looked like the same person anymore.

Of course, when he was out amongst his friends at camp he would put up a fake grin and smile and joke with the rest of them. Then his eyes were just neutral. But now they revealed how he truly felt.

Everybody always relied on him. He didn't blame them for that, of course. He was happy to help, and the sound of laughing children floating in from outside actually gave him a small burst of genuine happiness.

But it was soon gone, swallowed by his own hopelessness.

The war with Gaea was over, they were in an era of peace. Everything was perfect. So why did he feel like everything was falling apart around him?

He tapped the flat of the small blade he held in his hand against the exposed skin of his forearms. They were already littered with scars, some from Tartarus and his other various battles, but most by his own hand. Not that anybody noticed.

He was the great Hero of Olympus. His job was to save others, and now that that job was fulfilled, what purpose did he serve?

Annabeth was recovering. Slowly but surely she would get there. The horrible nightmares came less and less now, and whenever they _did_ come she knew she could find comfort in Percy.

It was the same with most of the campers. After all, he had been there. Through all of it he was there, right alongside them. He understood them, no matter how weird or horrible the dreams were they knew that Percy would help them.

But nobody ever considered that he had had worse. Nobody ever thought twice about the bags under his eyes.

They cared. But at the same time... they didn't.

He felt totally and utterly useless, but at the same time the weight of responsibility was crushing him, and it was destroying him inside.

A memory flashed behind his eyelids, he and the others on the quest wandering in a destroyed junk yard, calling and yelling like they had been for the past four hours.

" _Bianca! Bianca!..."_

The small knife dug into the skin on his right arm, and he sighed in relief. Crimson blood oozed from the small wound and dripped down his arm and onto the floor. He didn't care. With his power over water it was easy enough to clean up afterwards anyway.

Another memory appeared, replacing the first one.

Horrible hag-like creatures surrounded him. They reminded him a little bit of the Furies, especially in the way that they were grinning at him, like they knew something he didn't.

A voice that he recognised way too much was crying and screaming to him from the edge of the circle of Arai. Annabeth, his wise girl, was on her knees alternating between clawing at her eyes and waving her arms out in front of her in an effort to see something. Tears streamed from the unseeing white orbs, and they made his heart break all over again.

" _Percy! Why did you leave me?! Where are you, Percy?!"._

" _Annabeth! Annabeth, I'm right here! Hold on, I'm right here!"._

Every time he moved towards her it seemed as if she would move away again. Not by her own accord, just as if he was walking towards her but never getting any closer.

With sickening certainty he knew that the curse had been given to her by Calypso. He felt all the same feelings that he had felt when he had been in Tartarus when all of this had actually happened.

Shame, sadness, anger, helplessness, and utter disgust in himself all washed over him as he was forced to relive his realisation of when the gods had not followed through on their promise, and he left Calypso, the poor innocent girl he had sworn to help, stuck on her island prison.

The disgust in himself washed over him now, twice as intense as it had been then. He slashed the dagger once more across his skin, and more blood spilt. The sickly beautiful red colour stained his arm and dripped down his hand where it gathered in a small puddle on the cabin floor.

With scary indifference, Percy realised that this time, he had cut just a little bit too deep. The blood didn't stop leaking out as it did on all of the other cuts, and Percy realised that he must of hit the main blood vessels in his wrist.

A rag lay on the bed next to him, waiting for him to use to staunch the blood flow. But he just stared at it before his gaze lazily drifted back to the still bleeding wound on his arm.

 _Would it really be such a bad thing if he didn't stop the blood flow? If he just let himself die?_

The war was over. Neither the camps nor the gods needed him to protect them any longer.

 _So why are you still there? Your only purpose is to remind those of all the loss that they've suffered. You're so selfish: wanting to live when all you do is cause others pain. You_ _ **disgust**_ _me._

Percy shook his head to try and clear the thoughts, but he no longer had the strength or the will power. He agreed with the voice in his head. He had served his only real purpose. He was no longer needed. This was a good thing.

The world around him began to blur and spin, and he closed his eyes to clear it, but it did no good. He opened his eyes again with much difficulty, and with all the strength left in his body, he laid back on his bed, and let his bleeding arm hang over the edge.

His eyes were closed, but he was still conscious. The only thing to keep him company was the methodical dripping sound of his blood onto the floor.

 _Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip._

His breathing was coming slower now, and it seemed like he could never entirely catch his breath. He didn't try to. He knew exactly what was happening and exactly what he was doing.

He had almost drifted away into peaceful oblivion when another sound interrupted his peaceful environment. The sound of footsteps on the wooden floor of his cabin's porch.

He would have groaned if he still had the energy.

Couldn't they just leave him alone and let him pass into Elysium in peace?

 _Who says you deserve to go to Elysium?_

That thought made him hesitate for half a second. He had seen the horrors of the Field of Asphodel and the Fields of Punishment. He didn't want to go there.

 _Well unlike what you think, not everything is about what you want or don't want. It's about what you deserve, and that is it._

The voice was right. The voice was always right. Who was he kidding? The Fields of Punishment were exactly what he deserved.

"I'm sorry. It was just too much".

He heard the sound of the door opening, and the sound of somebody gasping, and then his vision went dark.


	2. Chapter 2

The rest of the seven and Nico were all meeting together in Annabeth's cabin in order to organise themselves for Percy's surprise. It was the end of summer, and they were all going to be leaving and going their separate ways soon.

Of course, they knew that Percy didn't really want to have a big birthday party- he never did. But they couldn't resist at least doing _something_ for him. After all, he was always there for them.

Percy's real birthday party would be with his mom and Paul on his actual birthday, but since that always fell after camp ended, they had decided to celebrate a week early.

"Okay? Is everybody ready?".

The group nodded. Annabeth was carrying a small blue cupcake with a singular candle stuck in it. Nothing too big and nothing too small. Leo had wanted to create some sort of firework machine, but Annabeth knew that that would only serve in embarrassing him. Besides, that was her job.

She smiled at the thought, and the group set out.

They had just stepped onto the grass outside the cabin when suddenly Nico gasped and fell to his knees, clutching his chest.

"Nico! Nico, what's wrong?".

Hazel was immediately knelt down by his side and examining him.

She looked up back towards the group in confusion after finding nothing physically wrong with him, and that's when he spoke.

"It's Percy", he gasped.

Nico wasn't lying when he said that he could feel every soul that left their body on the battlefield. Usually it didn't effect him that much. But when he knew the person personally, especially someone as close to him as Percy was, it was like somebody was digging a hot knife into his heart.

Annabeth's eyes widened in realisation, and the group immediately started running towards Cabin 3. Nico stood up, and staggered behind them, knowing that he had to be there too to help in any way he could.

When they arrived, they immediately felt that something was off. All the blinds were drawn, and the door was closed. The door was never closed.

There was also an air surrounding the cabin. An air of sadness and death. It only served to make their panic flare up even more.

Nico knew deep in his heart what they would find when they opened the door to that cabin. His soul hadn't left, not yet at least. But Nico could feel, especially now that he was closer to it, that it very desperately wanted to, and it would succeed if somebody didn't step in soon.

Around them, camp life continued on as normal. The sun continued shining with a happy golden light, the sound of laughter and the smell of ripe strawberries in the sun travelled through the air. Nobody noticed the group of heroes standing on the porch of Cabin 3 trying to prepare themselves for what they would see when they opened the door.

Annabeth was the first to break through the trance of horrific realisation and start moving again. The rest of the group soon followed, and as they walked across the porch of his cabin, their footsteps echoed hollowly.

The handle turned, and the door opened to reveal a dark interior. Another sign that something was seriously wrong here. Ever since their time in Tartarus, Percy had feared the dark, just like both Annabeth and Nico did. He always kept a light on, even when he slept.

The door wasn't fully open, but Annabeth was in the front of the group, and so she was the first to see him.

A gasp, closely followed by deafening silence was the only sound that could be heard amongst the group. The sounds of camp life blurred into the background.

As if in slow motion, the door continued on its path, not knowing what kind of horrible reality it was revealing. At the sound of the door hitting the inside wall of the cabin, time sped up again, and a scream of pure despair forced its way out of Annabeth's lips.

"NO!".

It rang throughout the camp, and everybody immediately stopped what they were doing to stare. Looking for the source of that heart-wrenching noise. As if for the first time, they noticed the group of frozen heroes outside of Cabin 3, and their eyes widened.

Annabeth ran to him while the others in the group attempted to fully absorb what they were seeing.

Their hero, no, their _best friend_ , Percy Jackson was laying on his bed. One of his arms limply hanging over the edge while trails of blood dripped down and onto a puddle on the floor. He was pale, way too pale, and his hair was pasted to his forehead with sweat, as if his final moments had been a physical struggle. Who knows? Perhaps they had been.

She fell on her knees on the ground right next to the edge of Percy's bed, disregarding the blood that now stained her clothes, and pulling his limp form towards her, hugging him to her chest.

His skin was cold, and clammy, and he didn't even stir at the contact. His breathing was erratic and faint against her chest, short random bursts of air that made his chest barely rise and fall being the only proof that he was still alive at all.

Tears streamed down her face as she turned around to face the group of friends still standing frozen in the doorway.

Jason looked completely shocked and saddened at the same time. Piper had a hand over her mouth, her eyes shining with tears that were silently spilling down her cheeks. Hazel just looked confused, like her mind couldn't fully process what she was seeing. Frank's gaze flitted from the blood on the floor, to the multiple gashes in Percy's wrist and then back again in horror. The grin that always seemed to be floating on Leo's face had completely faded, and he stared in haunted brown eyes at the limp body in Annabeth's arms that his mind kept insisting was definitely _not_ his friend.

Nico was at the back of the group. He looked on with knowing sadness, and out of all of them, he was probably the one who could best understand his friend's actions. Of course, they weren't right. And he wished with all of his heart that he didn't understand, but he did. His eyes settled on the gashes in Percy's forearm and wrist, the newest ones still slowly leaking blood as his heart slowed, and older ones that he hadn't even noticed before which were pink with healing, but still there nonetheless. He tugged on the sleeves of his own shirt and turned away from the sight before him. He would have vowed never to follow in Percy's footsteps, but then again, could he really make that promise and ever hope to keep it?

Annabeth just cried and stroked his hair, brushing it off of his clammy forehead and making soothing noises. Nobody knew if she was trying to soothe Percy's pain or her own in seeing him like this.

Finally her gaze snapped back up, her eyes were storming, and tears still streamed from them like a leaky faucet, but when her gaze met Nico's he knew that whatever she wanted he would do. There was no way he could refuse with the intensity of it all.

"Go find Will. Bring him here. He's still— he's still alive but I don't know for how much longer".

Nico nodded his head solemnly and melted into the shadows, presumably to do what she had asked. Next, she turned to Jason, the only one out of all of them who looked even remotely still put together.

"Jason, you have to Iris Message Olympus. Let the gods and Percy's father know what's going on. Maybe we can get Apollo down here with us".

He didn't move out of his place, his gaze was still locked on Percy as if he had never heard what she said.

"Jason! Go. Now!".

That snapped him out of it, and he turned and ran as fast as he could to the nearest fountain in camp.

A crowd of demigods and satyrs had gathered at a respectful distance away from the cabin. They didn't know what was going on, but from the aura of melancholy radiating from it, they knew it was something bad.

One tried to stop Jason to ask him, but the son of Jupiter just brushed him off and continued on towards his task. There was no way that he could even begin to try and explain to somebody else what he had just seen.

Jason dug out a drachma and flipped it into the rainbow caused by the mist of one of the fountains in the late afternoon sun.

"O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering and show me Olympus".

The air shimmered, and there, in front of him was the fully assembled council of the Olympian gods. They were all in their large godly forms, and seemed to be arguing about one thing or another. Whatever it was, Jason was sure it could wait and didn't even bother with respect when he interrupted.

"Lord Poseidon!", he shouted above them.

The gods immediately quieted, and Zeus looked the slightest bit annoyed and angry at the interruption.

Poseidon himself, however, recognised the boy floating in mist above the middle of the throne room as one of Percy's close friends, and wasn't all that bothered by his interruption of their completely unnecessary meeting.

"Jason! How may I help you?", he asked. His brow furrowed. The boy looked completely distraught, not at all like the normal calm boy he had been all throughout the war. That was his first clue that something was wrong.

"It's Percy, sir. You have to come quick. You and Lord Apollo. Please! Something—something's happened".

He couldn't bring himself to say it. Of course, he knew that he would find out eventually. After all, that was the only purpose of this call, to inform the gods of what had happened. But Jason himself was having a hard time fully believing what he had just seen.

All the gods' eyes widened at he mention of Apollo being needed. That could only mean one thing. Percy was hurt! And hurt too badly for the campers to do anything about it.

At once they all flashed down to camp, thankfully appearing in an area where there were no campers milling about. In fact, there were no campers walking around at all.

They discovered the reason why as they all made their way over to Percy's cabin, the most logical place for them to have brought him. What looked to be the entire camp had gathered outside of it. They were in a large half-circle at a far distance away from the actual door. The gods' would have asked why, but they already knew. They were feeling a similar apprehension. Like if they stayed out here, none of the horrors of what was happening inside would reach them, and it wouldn't be real.

Of course they knew that that was ridiculous, and Poseidon pushed through and covered the remaining ground in just a few strides.

Nico had appeared from the shadows in the infirmary while Will was bandaging up a camper's arm.

"Nico! How many times do I have to tell you not to do that Underworld stuff anymore. It drains you! We don't want you to fade again do we?".

He had an easy-going grin on his face, but that soon melted away when he saw Nico's expression. Nico, the ghost king, the prince of the Underworld, looked completely and utterly lost. He never showed any emotion beyond cold indifference and disdain so openly on his face. You had to know him for a long period of time to be able to read what he was truly feeling.

Nico didn't even have to speak before Will stepped towards him, grabbing his medical kit as he did, and grabbed the boy's hand saying, "Let's go".

Nico shadow travelled them directly into the cabin, he wasn't in the mood to deal with the large crowd which had gathered outside.

Basically nobody had moved from their previous positions. Annabeth was still rocking Percy back and forth and whispering to him in a voice that nobody could hear, and the others were still standing in the doorway in complete shock.

There was a loud popping sound, and Nico knew that the gods had arrived. His attention drifted back to Will who, after a moment of shock and hesitation, had immediately dived right in, an expression of medical professionalism taking over his emotions for now.

He pushed Annabeth out of the way and set Percy back flat against the bed and began working on him. Within seconds his wrist and forearm had been cleaned and tightly wrapped with bandages. At least now the blood loss had stopped.

There were no other injuries besides that, and so Will began to chant and glow in a faint golden light. Piper just stared at the process. She didn't know what Will could do at this point, after all, it wasn't as if they could replace the blood in his body.

A wind that smelled of ocean spray swept through the room, and suddenly Poseidon and Apollo were there.

Apollo, slipping into a smilier state of mind as his son, immediately crouched beside him and began chanting and glowing right alongside him. Poseidon joined the ranks of shocked and saddened onlookers that stood by the door.

Annabeth, after having been moved from his side by Will so that he could be healed, now staggered to her feet. She was covered in blood.

 _His blood._

The realisation made her want to vomit.

Swaying, she made her way outside of the cabin, back into the cheerful golden light of the afternoon, and did just that.

After emptying the contents of her stomach into the grass, she looked up.

The entire camp was staring at her, or more accurately, the blood that covered her.

She made her way over to Chiron, shock numbing her thoughts and feelings, and making it seem as though she was watching herself move around from somewhere else, like some sort of out-of-body experience.

She collapsed against her mentor. His brown eyes probed her's in confusion and alarm, but she couldn't make herself meet them.

"Annabeth! Are you alright, my child? What's happened? Are you hurt?".

The camp was deadly silent as all campers turned to her and waited for the answer.

Her tongue felt numb. But she somehow found it within herself to answer.

"It's not mine".

She was referring to the blood that covered her, and Chiron nodded as if her words had confirmed something that he already suspected.

She broke down, then. Her mind raced back into her body, and the sadness of what had happened hit her like a speeding truck.

"So much blood—We were going to celebrate his birthday today—I don't understand how he could just—", she gasped out incoherent things, and a horror like cold lead seeped into the bones of everybody present.

Clarisse marched up to her and slapped her across the face.

"Annabeth! What are you saying? What's happened?".

"It's Percy. He's— We found him—".

"Spit it out!".

"We found him in his cabin with his wrists cut. He was so pale… _so_ pale…", she drifted off, and all gazes were on her. Everybody had to look twice as they took in just _how much_ blood was on her clothes.

Clarisse stepped back, her hands which had previously rested on Annabeth's shoulders slipped off and hung limply by her side.

"Percy… tried to… _kill himself_?", she said in disbelief.

Annabeth was too distraught to notice that Clarisse had used his real name. As it was she could barely keep herself standing up.

 _No. He's not gone yet. You felt him breathing yourself. Apollo, the god of medicine is in there with him now. They'll bring him back. You can't fall apart, not yet._

The logical part of her brain was the only thing keeping her together, the only thing that kept her from trying to join him.

And still, even through the steely indifferent mask that she had placed over her face, her normally stormy grey eyes so filled with life looked nothing but haunted. The image of his limp body with the blood slowly gathering on the floor beneath him was all she could see every time she closed her eyes or even so much as blinked.

It shocked the campers twice as bad to see her like this. Annabeth, the girl who had been forced to grow up much too fast. The girl who, even in the face of overwhelming odds, never failed to lead the group with nothing but a hardened and grim determination on her face. And now she was falling apart, just by stepping foot into that cabin and bearing witness to what had happened inside.

"But… why?", somebody asked.

The question floated in the air like a fog of sadness and confusion. It resounded through every person's minds and hearts, and yet nobody had an answer. The camp was deathly silent as everybody was now gathered outside of Cabin 3 and waiting for some sort of answer to their numerous questions.

Nobody dared speak amongst them, and that one singular question seemed never to leave them.

 _Why?_


End file.
